“Successful client–agency relationships are built on continuous communication. It’s crucial for both parties to engage in regular meetings, exchange daily emails and texts, and meet in person to foster creativity and ensure full immersion in the business,” he continued.
Meanwhile, PepsiCo’s category growth officer and chief marketing officer for international foods, Mustafa Shamseldin, revealed that the company was continually looking to strengthen its agency ecosystems using an internal process called SLAM (stop, look, assess, manage), which has teams that focus on producing award-winning work.
“We empower teams and agencies with the freedom of ideation without restrictions. In a large global organization, this practice allows for a self-organizing, lean, autonomous and multidisciplinary creative approach,” added Shamseldin.
Further causes of tension for creatives included a conservative approach being taken by an agency chief executive—avoiding new ways of working, being risk-averse to new opportunities that may stretch a budget—and a lack of understanding of marketing by business teams and leadership.
Respondents felt that focusing on short-term outcomes by leadership risked adding pressure on creative teams, while also moving away from high-quality, brand-building creative. Senior executives also find it more difficult to link disparate data sources to build a coherent brand story to enhance the case for creativity, citing campaign data and increased investment with clients.
A growing level of marketing investment expected
As well as feeling positive about marketing spend growth, more than half of brand respondents (56%) said they were investing to drive short-term growth, although 70% also said they were investing to balance against an expected business decline this year.
The research also found that brands are expected to make creativity a priority, being 4.6 times more likely to spend more on marketing spend this year.
Molson Coors CMO Sofia Colucci cited the brewer’s framework, called Muscle, which combines the elements that it believes powerful creative needs to have while ensuring everyone “speaks the same language” when discussing creativity throughout the company.
“When you speak the same language, it’s then much easier to all work together to accomplish the same goal, which for us is making the most creatively effective work in the industry. It also allows for us to have rich discussions and critically assess not only our own work but also work we admire within the industry—continuing to raise the creative bar even further,” she added.
